Ten Rules for Successful Dating
by Nancy Brown
Summary: Ianto looked at him. "When did you move in?" Part of my fake third season.


Title: Ten Rules for Successful Dating  
Author: **nancybrown**  
Rating: R  
Characters: Jack/Ianto  
Warnings: emo, domesticity  
Beta: The always delightful **51stcenturyfox**. :D  
Words: 3500  
Spoilers: Up through "Exit Wounds"  
Summary: "When did you move in?"  
A/N: Written for **askance** in the **help_haiti** auction.

* * *

It probably started with the toothbrush.

Before - everything was neatly divided into "Before, when Jack was an arsehole," and "After he came back from that jaunt with the Doctor he won't tell us about," - Ianto had kept toiletries stowed in his desk up at the Tourist Centre. Extra suits hung in the back as well, but those had been with the excuse of needing sudden changes after being splattered with the disgusting compound of the day, and everyone did that. The shaving kit had been purchased after the second night he'd slept over at the Hub, after Tosh in a rare display of thoughtlessness asked him why his face was dirty.

Toiletries made life easier, before, less filled with questions he didn't want to ask himself, much less answer for any of the others. Smile, nod, shower early in the morning, and the rest would simply think him keen, if they thought of him at all. The same skills that kept him hidden during his last weeks with Lisa also provided cover for his early months with Jack, and nothing about the routine changed, even the desire, as the razor scraped his neck, for the courage to cut a bit deeper and end this whole miserable charade. (Rule One: This is just sex. It has nothing to do with Torchwood business. It is not a relationship.)

That was before.

While Jack was gone, Ianto left his kit in the gents', because someone had to stay over and he took the most turns and there was no point in pretending anymore. When Owen stayed, he took to leaving his own items strewn around the ancient sink tops, and it was one of those things the two of them never discussed, not once, because if they said the words aloud, it made the fears too real.

After, everything changed. Jack had probably meant aliens and such, probably still did, but for Ianto, for all of them, the changes were right at home. Jack had come back, had wanted to come back, had begun treating them like people. Had begun treating Ianto like someone he liked being around rather than just a convenient body who'd keep quiet about how much the boss liked to have his hands and feet handcuffed together while he sucked cock. Honestly, it wouldn't have come up in a team meeting anyway. Well, mostly likely. Well, not yet. (Rule Two: No one else needs to know.)

Before, the games and the scenes and the sheer simple pleasure of touching another human being, these things had been about shoving away the darkness and muting the voices whispering in his head. He'd never asked Jack what they'd been about for him. Now they played different games, pretended other scenes, and he was getting used to the feel of his own bed and a warm body wrapped around his more nights than not.

But while immortality cured many things, morning breath wasn't one of them, and when Ianto had made a teasing comment, Jack had brought a toothbrush the next time. Stiff, simple, white with blued bristles, it stood upright in the cup on the sink beside Ianto's, a tiny spear thrust against halitosis every morning as Jack talked around it, spitting foam everywhere.

Ianto approved of the toothbrush.

He stared at it now, at the blue-gone-white indicating it was time to buy a new one. As a means of measuring time, it was imprecise and still damning. As he washed his hands, other details impressed themselves upon him. The second towel, blue naturally, hanging to dry on the towel bar. Soap, lotion, shampoo, and products perched haphazardly along the sides of the bathtub, and a comb that wasn't his sat at the sink to coordinate with the extra razor.

He dried his hands, and played with his lower lip with his teeth.

"I was thinking omelettes," said Jack as Ianto emerged. He heard his refrigerator door bang shut, and winced. "I've been craving eggs all day."

"That sounds good," he said, coming into the small kitchen to see the frying pan already heating on the small gas range, a large lump of butter melting in the middle. Jack had found the eggs, and was chopping up the last of the ham Ianto had bought for sandwiches last week. His cheese had seen better days, but Jack sliced off the hairy parts and began shredding the rest. Knives, shredder, bowls, spoon and spatula clattered as Jack pulled them out without asking their location.

Ianto sat heavily in the chair that was his - the one closer to the door because Jack liked the one closer to the stove - and watched Jack make them supper.

"Toast?"

Ianto moved past him, and as expected, Jack took the opportunity to steal a kiss. (Rule Three: No kissing. That had been Ianto's first contribution to the rules. He'd prepared a speech about how kissing implied emotions and a relationship, neither of which applied, but Jack had merely shrugged, told him he was missing out, and agreed.)

Jack hummed happily as he cooked, sprinkling ham and cheese over the first omelette, looking utterly at peace with himself and the world. No indication that four hours ago, they'd been in a shootout with an alien bounty hunter who'd come through the Rift. No hint of the years on him, or the things he'd endured, or the two empty desks in the Hub.

Ianto turned to watch the toast brown, not comfortable for once with watching Jack.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Tired." A glance at the clock reminded him that this was the third time this week they'd eaten dinner after ten PM, and it was only Wednesday.

Jack slipped the first omelette onto a plate and leaned in for another kiss, this one on his neck. "Right, I'll make sure you get some sleep tonight." (Rule Four: Falling asleep at work will get someone killed. No sex after two AM.)

Ianto let his lips smile, before he retrieved the toast and put on the extra butter and jam Jack liked so much.

A few minutes later, their plates in front of them, Ianto dug into his eggs. Jack didn't make many complicated dishes, but if his cookery was unimaginative, it was always tasty. He'd promised to teach Ianto how to prepare some of his better meals. "It'll be a sexy cooking class," he'd said, but Ianto understood that everything would wait until they had more time, and they never had more time.

"Did you want to watch a movie tonight?" Jack was in a film buff phase again: crappy science fiction, westerns, psychological thrillers, anything and everything. Ianto suspected the sole criterion was whether anyone on the front of the box looked like someone Jack remembered.

"Not tonight."

"Okay."

Later, Jack would crawl out of bed and amuse himself with his latest rental alone, and climb back in shortly before the alarm sounded. Every night for the past several weeks which hadn't been interrupted by the Rift, or worse, that had been his pattern. Jack had even moved the settee to a better position for watching the telly.

Ianto looked at the last forkful of egg and ham, and then set the utensil down without eating it. "When did you move in?"

"Hm?"

"You live here."

"No, I don't. I live at the Hub. Little room under my office. You've been there once or twice." Or several times a week for months, before.

"Your clothes are here."

"Not all of them."

That was true, but it was just as true that Ianto kept several spare changes of clothing at the Hub for messes and for the nights they spent there when it was too late to bother coming home. "I keep more suits at the Hub than you do."

"That can't be right."

"I do your laundry. I'm right."

Jack sat back. "Really?"

Ianto played with the last bite of his food. "When's the last night you weren't here that wasn't accompanied by a Rift alert?"

"There was that meeting in London."

"Doesn't count. You called as soon as you got back to the hotel and we had phone sex."

"It was _good_phone sex."

Also true. Sometimes they had phone sex between here and the Hub, simply because it was fun. Jack had never met dirty talk he didn't love, and Ianto found it freeing to put his imagination into overdrive.

"You sleep here every night. Your things are here."

"Not all my things are here."

"The blankets you still keep at the Hub don't count."

"I have … " Jack stopped. "I don't really own a lot of _things_. I like to travel light." (Rule Five: Another of Jack's rules. Someday, I might disappear. I'm trying to track someone down, and when I do, don't think it was about you, about this, when I go.)

"So you agree most of your possessions are here. You have a key."

"I also have a key to Gwen's place. I should probably tell her that at some point." (Rule Six: Either one may feel free to pursue relationships with outside parties without notification. Amended: Unless it's someone at work, in which case notification is mandatory. The amendment had yet to be needed, but Ianto had insisted on it.) "Anyway, what's this about?"

"Nothing." He pushed the plate away. "I just wished we'd talked about it before you moved in."

"I didn't move in."

Ianto stared at him, but it was worse than a staring contest with a cat, and he had to look away first. He wanted to say that it was fine, that had they discussed the matter, he was okay with living together, it was just that he'd like to have been consulted. But there was Jack, watching him with that not-exactly-amused face, eyebrow ready to raise, willing to argue that just because they spent very nearly every waking minute together was no reason to start labelling things. And it just wasn't worth the fight.

"I'll get the dishes in the morning," he said instead. "Bed?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

Bed was easy, or was when he wasn't stuck in his head like tonight. Sure, some nights were still about working buttons in order to slide the clothes away from the places he wanted to grasp and lave with sloppy kisses, all elbows and bruised knees and aching jaw and finding the fabric burns later. Certainly, most nights were still filled with "ohgodyesthere" and "harderfasterplease," but tonight Ianto undressed himself and put his clothes away, and so did Jack, and it was only after they'd slid under the covers that the kissing even began.

Which was … nice. And familiar, though he didn't let himself dwell on the last few months in London too closely. (Rule Seven: The past is the past. Amended: Except when it's not.) Mentioning the ghost invoked it, though, and while his mouth enjoyed the feel of Jack's lips, his mind went back there, to when he'd moved his suitcases and boxes of books and DVDs from the flat he shared with two other blokes across the city into Lisa's much nicer flat near work. She had the better furniture, the nicer view, and most importantly, no-one to knock on her bedroom door telling them to pipe down. They hadn't talked marriage yet, not in so many words, not before the world ended. As he took care of her, they'd told each other elaborate, outrageous, painful lies about where they'd live, and what they'd name the children. Around the time she started suggesting distant countries and Tolkien characters, he stopped believing either of them would ever leave the cellar alive.

"Hey, said Jack, voice muffled by the expanse of neck he was currently nibbling. "Anyone home?" His hands moved down and neatly captured Ianto's full attention between them.

"Bad time to woolgather," Ianto said, dipping down and tasting Jack's mouth again. Jesus, and to think he'd once said this was off the table. Thinking back, there were at least two separate occasions Jack had made him come just from kissing. (Rule Eight: Forget Rule Three. Especially after rising from the dead. Rule Two's right out of the water, as well.)

"We should talk," Jack said around more kisses, and if his hands kept working their delicious magic, Ianto was going to finish Round One very soon, "about your obsession with sheep."

"Says the man with the Velcro mittens." Very very soon. Ianto's hands were all over Jack's back, running his blunt fingernails over the smooth skin as Jack twisted and arched like a cat.

Jack's wriststrap beeped. Jack ignored it, continued moving his hands just so, and Ianto closed his eyes, caught near the edge and not wanting to stop. It beeped again, breaking through the haze. "Jack … "

"Just," more kissing, "a minute."

"Answer it." And with more self-control than he felt anyone should reasonably have at this point in time, Ianto pushed him away. Jack swore, and snatched the strap from the nightstand.

"Rift alert."

"Of course it is."

"I could call Gwen. Make her check it out."

"She'll ask why we're not going."

"I'd tell her."

"Exactly." Ianto got out of bed and began, somewhat awkwardly, pulling his clothes back on, while Jack fitted the strap to his wrist again.

"You could stay here. Get some sleep."

"Why start now?"

* * *

Four hours later, they dragged into the Hub, covered in filth and lugging between them the corpse of a Horendi trader. He'd been taking out his foul mood at being taken by the Rift and deposited here on the cars parked on both sides of Fairwater Road. Back in the day, Owen would have taken it apart later for educational purposes, but Jack was the closest thing they had to a trained medic now, and he already had the education. They dumped the body in the incinerator room, and Ianto knew what he'd be doing in the morning.

"Shower?" Jack asked, and despite the grime, he appeared wide awake and fresh as a damned daisy. Unfair, and at this time of night, significantly less attractive than he might have been under the same circumstances otherwise.

"I'm going home for a couple of hours' sleep."

"You've got clothes here. And the showers are bigger." Something originally designed for ten people would have to be.

"I've got a bed there, and my shower works fine."

"Fine," said Jack, and he turned out the main lights in the Hub as Ianto watched. "Ready?"

Ianto nodded, because he didn't want to say, "I thought you were staying here." He kept quiet on the drive back to his flat, and when they parked, Jack said, "Wake up."

"I'm awake."

Jack got out, and unlocked the door before Ianto even had his key ready. Coats and boots were discarded by the door. Jack removed his soiled clothes, even remembering to drop them in the hamper instead of the floor this time, and went to start the water while Ianto did not sit on his bed (getting it dirty) and did not rest his face in his hands (because he knew where his hands had been tonight) and did not mutter about boyfriends who moved in without bloody well mentioning it first (well, maybe a bit).

"Hurry up," Jack said from the bathroom. "I'll wash your back." He wasn't using his porn star voice this time, at least.

Ianto stripped off his clothes, dumped them in the hamper, and went to shower with Jack.

* * *

He awoke to the sound of the alarm buzzing, and the feel of arms and legs wrapped snugly around him like ropes. Slowly, Ianto uncoiled the bindings, despite Jack's attempts to nuzzle deeper, and hit the alarm with his fist. Jack groaned. "'S not morning yet."

"'S been morning since we went to sleep."

"More sleep, less morning."

"You know what the boss is like when I'm late."

"Your boss is a jerk. Ask him if he'll let you sleep in if you give him a blowjob."

"He'll say yes. And then he'll expect one every morning for the rest ... " He stopped, and swung out his legs.

"For the rest of what?" Jack said into the pillow Ianto's head had abandoned.

"For the rest of the week, at least," Ianto said, instead of what he'd almost said.

"I think this is definitely an avenue worth pursuing."

"I think you should get up. The boss might let me sleep in, but then he might expect a blowjob from you as well. And you're simply not that flexible anymore."

"Is that an 'old' joke?"

"Yes." The response was a pillow tossed at his head as he went to his wardrobe for the day's clothes.

Jack rolled his body upright, like a toy, and crawled out of bed. He moved beside Ianto to get his own clothes - neatly put away in the wardrobe to one side - and bent in for a quick kiss, which Ianto ducked.

"Teeth."

"Do I complain about your breath in the morning?"

"Considering where you prefer my mouth start the day? Never."

Jack grinned, but he padded, still naked, into the bathroom, where Ianto soon heard the sounds of Jack brushing his teeth. As he listened, and dressed, Ianto looked at the clothes hanging in his wardrobe. The items in the hamper would be laundered and put away here. Work clothes. But hanging at the far end was Jack's nice suit, the one he'd worn when they'd gone out during a rare night free.

When Ianto had mentioned dancing, he'd pictured them at one of the clubs near the Quay, maybe the Temple, which had a decent rep, and no-one would stare. But Jack had driven to a different kind of club, and they'd had a five course dinner before Jack had shown him dances Ianto'd only seen in old films. It was right after the thing with the Daleks, after Jack left them a second time to go with the Doctor, and had come right back. Ianto had spent the following week not letting Jack out of his sight, afraid it had been a mistake, that he was gathering his things and would be gone again with the man he'd spent over a century pining after.

The music was lovely, and Jack had leaned in, as they moved to something slow, and he'd said, "You know I'm not going anywhere, right?" (Rule Nine: Forget Rule Five. Rule Five is a stupid rule. And Rule Six is off the table.) They'd come back here, after, and when Jack's suit had been cleaned and pressed, it had ended up in the wardrobe. Jack had been here most nights before that, and every night since.

The water shut off in the bathroom.

Ianto had plenty of illusions. He used them to help him get through the day. Sometimes he let himself believe that he was completely sane, that losing people he loved would hurt less as time passed, that he was going to live to see thirty. But even when he pretended, he knew better, knew that Torchwood agents didn't measure their lives in decades. If he was lucky, he had a few years left, but he was never lucky.

Whatever this was with Jack, it was going to last the rest of Ianto's life. If he was not okay with that, well, it was probably past time to fix the situation, but it was certainly time to tell Jack to take his clothes and other possessions back to his own space. If the clothes stayed, if the dress suit stayed, if Jack stayed, then any last pretence at Rule One was gone.

Jack came back in, pushing his face in for a demanding kiss. Ianto enjoyed the moment, and the slight tingle of the last bit of toothpaste in Jack's mouth.

"Better?"

"Much."

"The things I do for you." Jack grabbed a blue shirt and grey trousers and a vest from the shelf. The nice suit stayed where it was.

"I need to run to the shops today," Ianto said, barely paying attention to his own words. "We're running low on food here, and we are out of some things at the Hub. Think about what you want me to pick up."

"Oooo. Crisps, those ones with the vinegar. Maybe a couple of frozen pizzas." This was said as he finished fastening his trousers, which were just a bit tight. "There's a salmon dish I want to try, but I'll need shallots and garlic and cream."

"Write it down and I'll look." He wet his lips. "Jack?"

"Hm?"

Go or stay. Now or never. But Never really wasn't such a long time, and Now watched him with a faint smile that gleamed, and what the hell, Rule One had stopped applying a long time ago.

"Was there anything else?" Ianto buttoned his waistcoat and donned his suit coat. Absently, Jack helped him get the shoulders right.

"My toothbrush is getting spongy."

Ianto smiled. "Already on the list."

(Rule Ten: Stay. Just stay.)

* * *

The End

* * *

AN: My three favorite words are "I liked this." The next fic in this series is "The Extraterrestrial."


End file.
